I am a 4th year student at Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Engineering(GGSIPU), New Delhi.
I am looking forward to applying for MS in CS with a specialization in Machine Learning/Data Sciences (or MSDS/MCDS).

1 paper in IJEERT, Could have been more patient and worked a bit more on it to get it published at an IEEE conference or similar level but since it was my first time, learning the whole process from working on something to getting it finally published was the aim. LINK: http://www.ijeert.org/pdf/v4-i4/3.pdf

1 international conference paper at DCAI'17 Porto, Portugal. Really proud of this one considering how long the whole process took and the quality of the people and papers we saw at the conference, gave me a lot confidence that our work was not at all bad. LINK:https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-62410-5_40?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base%3B3aGAFReUQXy9dl4P8vQU​7A%3D%3D

Projects;

And android application that used (headphonelistener()) to trigger alarm when a headphone was removed from the phone. The idea was for the phone to make a noise if it gets picked off in a crowd and the user has his headphone plugged in( happened to my co-developer in metro) It also sent out messages of GPS coordinated every 60secs to pre-subscribed numbers through SMS service.

A college resource website that I designed with bootstrap over the summer break after first year. I made the whole thing from start to finish and deploying the thing, all by myself, I realise HTML/CSS and bootstrap isn't very impressive to admissions committee but I'm hoping that since I did it all by myself from start to finish, it shows drive and determination to take things to completion.
LINK: http://www.csun.in
the website is still a project so I'm aware there's still work to be done.

Internship;
@Siemens Technology India; Was tasked with developing an interactive horizontal bar graph for release 8 of their client side data representation tool.

LOR's:
1.Dean of research at my college( previously HOD of CS) She was my mentor for both my research papers.
2.T&P head at my college, Taught us Switching theory and microprocessors later. I can tell he has a liking for me so i'm sure he'll write me a nice recommendation
3. Either Principal of my college or one of the teachers at my college. Our principal was briefly my mentor for a project but we had very little interaction so I'm not confident about asking him for a recommendation.

I have followed admissions to universities in the US for 2 years now(Fall'16 and Fall'17) I realize how random sometimes the decisions can be and how some of your mods can bewilderingly betray you. So I understand applying to 10+ universities is a good idea to eliminate the randomness.

I request seniors to evaluate my profile and help me out with the list of the colleges I'll be applying to. I feel like I need to add more safes. I obviously have to drop about 5-6 out of my list. I would appreciate any recommendations to specific programs (ML/DS) at universities apart from MCDS ast CMU.

It'd also be very gracious of anyone to help me with the following;
1. Out of all my recommends only one holds a PHD, would that be an issue? Should I consider asking my principal (who i barely worked with, read above) for a recommendation?
2. My Percentage at college jumped once i realized that scoring at college is more about writing pretty and writing neat. I've gotten a 59 on Data Structures in my third sem while the generic answer writing, page filling morons scored in higher 80s.
As soon as I did see why I wasn't scoring my percentage did improve ( 74% avg for first 3 sems, 84% avg for the last 3). I was wondering if I should be explaining in my SOP why my DataStructures score is so poor and that I actually am much better at it than the score reflects. My Algorithms Design and Analysis score in 5th sem was 85 just because i made a beautiful scrapbook out of my answer sheet and not because i actually deserve the score. Would this be helpful in the SOP?

1. Out of all my recommends only one holds a PHD, would that be an issue? Should I consider asking my principal (who i barely worked with, read above) for a recommendation?

One professor's recommendation is kind of common in CS. (Hopefully with a PhD!!)

2. My Percentage at college jumped once i realized that scoring at college is more about writing pretty and writing neat. I've gotten a 59 on Data Structures in my third sem while the generic answer writing, page filling morons scored in higher 80s.
As soon as I did see why I wasn't scoring my percentage did improve ( 74% avg for first 3 sems, 84% avg for the last 3). I was wondering if I should be explaining in my SOP why my DataStructures score is so poor and that I actually am much better at it than the score reflects. My Algorithms Design and Analysis score in 5th sem was 85 just because i made a beautiful scrapbook out of my answer sheet and not because i actually deserve the score. Would this be helpful in the SOP?

First let me answer your questions:
It'd also be very gracious of anyone to help me with the following;
1. Out of all my recommends only one holds a PHD, would that be an issue? Should I consider asking my principal (who i barely worked with, read above) for a recommendation?

This shouldn't be on your mind. Remember that the content of LoRs matter more, much more, than who is writing it. Don't ask the principal if you have a brief working history with them. I had a similar decision to make, and I decided on not asking for it. I do not regret that decision.

2. My Percentage at college jumped once i realized that scoring at college is more about writing pretty and writing neat. I've gotten a 59 on Data Structures in my third sem while the generic answer writing, page filling morons scored in higher 80s.
As soon as I did see why I wasn't scoring my percentage did improve ( 74% avg for first 3 sems, 84% avg for the last 3). I was wondering if I should be explaining in my SOP why my DataStructures score is so poor and that I actually am much better at it than the score reflects. My Algorithms Design and Analysis score in 5th sem was 85 just because i made a beautiful scrapbook out of my answer sheet and not because i actually deserve the score. Would this be helpful in the SOP?

As someone said above, don't dig holes. They are not gonna notice unless you explicitly mention it to them. What they are gonna notice is your CV paper, and you should highlight it subtly, and with humility. What courses you pursued in your degree should not be a part of your SoP anyway.

Also do check with the schools you're planning to apply to if they allow you to apply to multiple programs at the same time. Not all do, and some even say you can only apply to one program in one given academic year (from one Fall entry to the next).

1)Please mention as many details as possible about your academics, research and work-ex, in terms of projects worked on, technologies used, roles/responsibilities handled, papers published/presented, awards/honors obtained, etc. All those have to be put in the misc details section of your UniSearch profile if you expect any help on Edulix. Also, before requesting for profile evaluations, please go through this excellent post.

2)Please take some time out to read this and this thread in their entirety.PLEASE do that before asking questions about universities from a comparison perspective, or jobs, or coursework, or H-1B visas, or "placements", irrespective of which univ/department/program/major you're applying to.

"Don't be daft." - Ancalagon The Black

"With the exchange rate where it is now, it should be a strong deterrent against picking a slightly better program for a lot more tuition fees." - coolguru

I am a 4th year student at Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Engineering(GGSIPU), New Delhi.
I am looking forward to applying for MS in CS with a specialization in Machine Learning/Data Sciences (or MSDS/MCDS).

1 paper in IJEERT, Could have been more patient and worked a bit more on it to get it published at an IEEE conference or similar level but since it was my first time, learning the whole process from working on something to getting it finally published was the aim. LINK: http://www.ijeert.org/pdf/v4-i4/3.pdf

1 international conference paper at DCAI'17 Porto, Portugal. Really proud of this one considering how long the whole process took and the quality of the people and papers we saw at the conference, gave me a lot confidence that our work was not at all bad. LINK:https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-62410-5_40?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base%3B3aGAFReUQXy9dl4P8vQU​7A%3D%3D

Projects;

And android application that used (headphonelistener()) to trigger alarm when a headphone was removed from the phone. The idea was for the phone to make a noise if it gets picked off in a crowd and the user has his headphone plugged in( happened to my co-developer in metro) It also sent out messages of GPS coordinated every 60secs to pre-subscribed numbers through SMS service.

A college resource website that I designed with bootstrap over the summer break after first year. I made the whole thing from start to finish and deploying the thing, all by myself, I realise HTML/CSS and bootstrap isn't very impressive to admissions committee but I'm hoping that since I did it all by myself from start to finish, it shows drive and determination to take things to completion.
LINK: http://www.csun.in
the website is still a project so I'm aware there's still work to be done.

Internship;
@Siemens Technology India; Was tasked with developing an interactive horizontal bar graph for release 8 of their client side data representation tool.

LOR's:
1.Dean of research at my college( previously HOD of CS) She was my mentor for both my research papers.
2.T&P head at my college, Taught us Switching theory and microprocessors later. I can tell he has a liking for me so i'm sure he'll write me a nice recommendation
3. Either Principal of my college or one of the teachers at my college. Our principal was briefly my mentor for a project but we had very little interaction so I'm not confident about asking him for a recommendation.

I have followed admissions to universities in the US for 2 years now(Fall'16 and Fall'17) I realize how random sometimes the decisions can be and how some of your mods can bewilderingly betray you. So I understand applying to 10+ universities is a good idea to eliminate the randomness.

I request seniors to evaluate my profile and help me out with the list of the colleges I'll be applying to. I feel like I need to add more safes. I obviously have to drop about 5-6 out of my list. I would appreciate any recommendations to specific programs (ML/DS) at universities apart from MCDS ast CMU.

It'd also be very gracious of anyone to help me with the following;
1. Out of all my recommends only one holds a PHD, would that be an issue? Should I consider asking my principal (who i barely worked with, read above) for a recommendation?
2. My Percentage at college jumped once i realized that scoring at college is more about writing pretty and writing neat. I've gotten a 59 on Data Structures in my third sem while the generic answer writing, page filling morons scored in higher 80s.
As soon as I did see why I wasn't scoring my percentage did improve ( 74% avg for first 3 sems, 84% avg for the last 3). I was wondering if I should be explaining in my SOP why my DataStructures score is so poor and that I actually am much better at it than the score reflects. My Algorithms Design and Analysis score in 5th sem was 85 just because i made a beautiful scrapbook out of my answer sheet and not because i actually deserve the score. Would this be helpful in the SOP?

In case of Data Structure score, you must explain you have understood core subjects and applied the fundamentals in project. Don't specifically mention about data structure. Never write negative points in SOP. Read the articles written by seniors regarding SOP.

Quote:In case of Data Structure score, you must explain you have understood core subjects and applied the fundamentals in project. Don't specifically mention about data structure. Never write negative points in SOP. Read the articles written by seniors regarding SOP.

I'm going to differ with Chirantar here. I completely agree with his point about not mentioning negatives in the SOP - unless your profile has so many negatives that you have to talk about them. Unless that's the case, I would suggest not talking about the negatives in your SOP, especially if your performance improved later on. Highlights the lows without compensating for them very well later on is only going to bring a lot of unnecessary focus on those lows. That's not the way to present your best foot forward. Instead, I'd recommend that if at all you want to talk about your deficiencies, put in one single sentence about how you have lower than expected scores in something, but how you compensated for that by doing some other courses/projects/work-ex that more than makes up for the lower scores. Unless that is possible, if you leave the topic on a negative note, that's going to stick out like a sore thumb in the mind of the reader.

1)Please mention as many details as possible about your academics, research and work-ex, in terms of projects worked on, technologies used, roles/responsibilities handled, papers published/presented, awards/honors obtained, etc. All those have to be put in the misc details section of your UniSearch profile if you expect any help on Edulix. Also, before requesting for profile evaluations, please go through this excellent post.

2)Please take some time out to read this and this thread in their entirety.PLEASE do that before asking questions about universities from a comparison perspective, or jobs, or coursework, or H-1B visas, or "placements", irrespective of which univ/department/program/major you're applying to.

"Don't be daft." - Ancalagon The Black

"With the exchange rate where it is now, it should be a strong deterrent against picking a slightly better program for a lot more tuition fees." - coolguru

Quote:In case of Data Structure score, you must explain you have understood core subjects and applied the fundamentals in project. Don't specifically mention about data structure. Never write negative points in SOP. Read the articles written by seniors regarding SOP.

I'm going to differ with @[Chirantar] here. I completely agree with his point about not mentioning negatives in the SOP - unless your profile has so many negatives that you have to talk about them. Unless that's the case, I would suggest not talking about the negatives in your SOP, especially if your performance improved later on. Highlights the lows without compensating for them very well later on is only going to bring a lot of unnecessary focus on those lows. That's not the way to present your best foot forward. Instead, I'd recommend that if at all you want to talk about your deficiencies, put in one single sentence about how you have lower than expected scores in something, but how you compensated for that by doing some other courses/projects/work-ex that more than makes up for the lower scores. Unless that is possible, if you leave the topic on a negative note, that's going to stick out like a sore thumb in the mind of the reader.

Well explained The_Observer. Avoid writing negative unless you have something very strong which will compensate later. Also remember SOP is best chance to portray yourself as one of promising student. So make best use of this opportunity. Read threads as mentioned by him along with other threads written in forum on SOP. Best luck

Read through this thread completely. A lot of stuff has been discussed over there which would help you to write and/or critique your SOP.

1)Please mention as many details as possible about your academics, research and work-ex, in terms of projects worked on, technologies used, roles/responsibilities handled, papers published/presented, awards/honors obtained, etc. All those have to be put in the misc details section of your UniSearch profile if you expect any help on Edulix. Also, before requesting for profile evaluations, please go through this excellent post.

2)Please take some time out to read this and this thread in their entirety.PLEASE do that before asking questions about universities from a comparison perspective, or jobs, or coursework, or H-1B visas, or "placements", irrespective of which univ/department/program/major you're applying to.

"Don't be daft." - Ancalagon The Black

"With the exchange rate where it is now, it should be a strong deterrent against picking a slightly better program for a lot more tuition fees." - coolguru